Inspire Me

Last night I attended a literary reading, and I fell in love with words all over again.  Oh, it's an affair that finds me more often than not, sneaking up on me through a stark line in a movie, a clever phrase on the radio, brilliant wisdom passed on by a friend, lines scribbled on an envelope, in a play or in the middle of a novel, and turning my head again.  Sometimes, I forget. I get caught up in so many other things in my life, I forget to pay attention to the words that connect me to the rest of the world, tether me to humanity, remind me of what I am.  Words are what both knock me down, and, at the same time, lift me up.

In this case, it was poetry that had me captivated.  Sitting in my seat, under an open summer sky, soaking up the starlight and night breezes, those words wrapped around me.  Some of them caressed me, wrapped me gently in their embrace, while others slapped me sharply across the face.  Poetry is  a challenge - to capture emotions, a story, a fleeting vision, with just a few well chosen phrases.  It's an art all its own.  I've written my own poetry all of my life, using it less to convey what I see and feel to others than to reveal it to myself.  Others keep diaries, I write poems.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I never said I write good poetry.  I simply said, I write.  Sometimes, I don't know what the words are going to tell me, until they are on the paper.  But after last night, I find myself re-inspired, to write more, to polish my words and guide them as much as they often guide me.  And so, in keeping with that idea, below are some of my own words from the last decade or so.  Enjoy the snapshots of where I was, in those moments.  The words remain, though I have already changed.

Power Trip

I am afraid
of you
of power
of myself.

I am afraid to crawl, to laugh, to cry
and more afraid to fall.

I am afraid
of pain
of feeling
of living.

I am calm on the outside, shaking within;
I am ready to quit, unsure where to begin.

I am afraid
of dreams
of fantasy
of reality.

I am afraid
but not enough to

stop.

2005

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Math Reasoning

Cover me in one million kisses
Dance with me one thousand times
Sing to me one hundred love songs
Say to me once that I've been on your mind.

Bring to me your own special smiles
In number, greater than stars in the sky
Play for me eighth notes of moonlight
Celestial tunes to which we can fly.

Name for me one million reasons
That we belong to each other infinity squared
Share with me one thousand stores of love
Legends with which, our lives can compare.

One hundred nights to share together
One hundred and a thousand more again
Look in my eyes, until time no more passes
One billion cycles without beginning or end.

2008
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tired eyes
looking out on a jaded world
a world of deceit, regret, pain
a world of longing, drowning, sorrow, rain

angry eyes
seeing people for who they really are
people who lie, who rape, who maim
people who bruise, who ignore, who blame

grieving eyes
looking back on a bland life
a life of fear, defeat, numbness
a life of giving up, lying down, dumbness

blue eyes
looking into the mirror
looking into a futureless past
looking into an endless future

dead eyes
not seeing at all

2011

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he seduces me with words

and I forget my own name

he undresses me with wit and ideas

lays me bare until I find my own truths

he plays me with games

and I almost never know the rules

he draws me in with poetry and lyrics

then steals my thoughts and my voice

but he doesn’t really know himself

because, if he did, if he understood

half so well as he understands words

he wouldn’t like the story very much.

2014

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with fiery touch,

engulf me

burn my skin with wanting,

the ember of your gaze.

surround me with the heat

of your touch

until I melt and am no longer

me and you are no longer you,

but we are one gasping, beating mass.

steal my breath and sear my lungs

and promise to breathe for me

illuminate me for one brief, brilliant, painful moment

worth every second of the brutal, searing pain,

for the fire is the most beautiful when it is

most greedily consuming, stealing, becoming,

and I want to burn

2015